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Lympa Log - Leica R lenses on Olympus E-330 DSLR

Photos and Text © Gary Todoroff  2006 All Rights Reserved

Mar 14, 2006

Here's another “Lympa” incarnation – the E-330 with attached Leica 90mm f2 Summicron looking like it should be tested for steroids.

Leica loves to christen lenses with real names, not just focal length and f-stop nomenclatures. Being able to say, “Yeh, shot that with my 90 ‘Cron,” has a certain panache even when the photo doesn't.

Olympus E-330 with Leitz 90mm Summicron-R attached with FourthThirds LR adapter

 

Friends came over for dinner last night -what better opportunity to try out the 90 'Cron for the first time. My Lympa looked good next to the china and silver. Carrie across the table looked even better.

 

The dining room light was dim but pleasantly balanced with candles on the table providing small catch-lights. At 180mm equivalent, I was backed-up against the wall for this full-frame shot, but that helped to steady the camera while using the optical viewfinder and manual focus. With ISO at 1600 and wide-open in Aperture mode at f2, the E-330 chose 1/50th second.  I set the camera for "Monotone" to be able to quickly see in the LCD what kind of effect black and white would capture.  After a couple of shots, reviewing the unusual B&W photographs on the bright LCD captured Carrie's interest, too. Getting her involved in the photos led to a very relaxed looking portrait.

 

Monotone on the E-330 at 1600 ISO looks surprisingly similar to Tri-X developed in D-76 - electronic noise appears like the grain of my favorite black and white negative film, especially when some sharpening is applied in Photoshop. At magnification, some banding shows up at this maximum ISO setting, running transversely with the camera (i.e., vertical in portrait orientation), especially in the mid-tone areas. Otherwise, I can't complain at the kind of photo you get with a super-sharp lens opened to f2 to blur the background and focused precisely to capture the beauty of a young woman.

 

Carrie in available light at ISO 1600 with

Olympus E-330, Leitz 90mm Summicron-R, 1/50th, f2

Aperture Priority and Monotone settings.

 

The combination of 90/2 lens and the E-330 makes for a very balanced feel in the hand. The extended grip on the right and indentation on the back for your thumb gives a secure feel.

I'm still getting used to the more angular curve of the E-330 hand-grip and think I like better the more subtle shape of the grip on my C-8080.

But the E-330 on/off switch beats the 8080 hands-down. I can't begin to count the number of times in the middle of shooting that everything went black in the 8080 viewfinder because I had accidentally touched the sensitive on/off button. The E-330 lever doesn't turn the camera off unless you intend to turn it off!

 

One last photo for today, showing a mundane but important procedure I did right away with the new E-330. By applying an LCD protector, you avoid scratches. That is especially important on this large and bright screen. The LCD gives you instructive feed-back on your last shot, and also provides a whole new world of creative composition to take a photo in Live View - all with interchangeable lenses!

Mar 17, 2006

Olympus E-330 PROS and CONS

 

Time to write the pros and cons list that I promised a couple of posting ago. If the cons appear to outweigh the pros, that's only because the really great features of the E-330 are easier to describe in few words.

Shooting is what it's all about, right? Here the Olympus E-330 shoots the shooter, CO Stephen Sundberg, practicing at the Eureka High School Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp (NJROTC) range. Cadets shoot air rifles at ten meters, here in preparation for a match with another NJROTC unit the next day in Sacramento. Cadets compete throughout Northern California in many activities and get to travel and stay at military bases as part of field trips during the year.

I coach the rifle team two or three days a week and enjoy seeing cadets develop the discipline and concentration that it takes to shoot well.

Zuiko 7-14mm 1/15th sec, f4.0, at 14mm, 800 ISO, White Balance set at fluorescent #1. No color adjustment necessary.

My observations on the positives and the negatives from a few days experience with the Olympus E-330:

Pros

 

LCD Live View: Number one of course is the flip LCD view screen in Live Mode. This feature alone is what will secure the E-330's place in photographic history.

 

The on/off switch is solid and stiff – no accidental camera shut-downs like with the supersensitive on/off button on the C-8080.

 

Dual card storage – I use the CF slot for shooting with 1 or 2gb cards and the XD as a small (128mb) “reserve tank”. When the big card fills up in the middle of action, a quick menu switch to the XD could make the difference between getting the shot or fumbling around for another CF card.  (Reminds me of my first car - a '58 Volkswagon Beetle with no gas gauge but a suicide handle low on the floor that you could flip for thirty extra miles when the main tank ran out . . . if you survived the stretch-maneuver that took your head below the dash while driving.)

 

Ultrawide lens – and all other Olympus interchangeable lenses for that matter, but on a camera with live view - that makes this the exceptional camera that it is. Throw in the Zuiko reputation for excellent lenses and you can't lose. The 7-14mm/4.0 lens is a real performer.

 

OK Menu button: all important equivalent of the Enter Key is located in the middle of the arrow key buttons where it belongs.

Optical Viewfinder on the left: For a right-eyed shooter, you don't mash your nose on the back of camera, bad enough for old SLRs and even worse for smudging up the LCD on DSLRs. After so many years of Leica M cameras, the left-side viewfinder on the E-330 makes it feel like an old friend.

 

Some of the high school girls in the NJROTC unit check out the upcoming schedule for the field trip to see the Blue Angels air show tomorrow in Sacramento. With Eureka not very close to anywhere, students have to be a dedicated group to meet at 3:45am for the road trip south.

This kind of photo is where the E-330 shines. I was able to set the camera on the black computer monitorl at the lower left corner - a long arm-stretch away over the desk. With the Live View in Mode A, it was easy to see and compose the shot in the LCD without having to climb on top of furniture. Plus, I could steady the camera on the monitor to keep a sharp picture at slow shutter speed. Auto focus in mode A worked perfectly.

Zuiko 7-14mm 1/15th sec, f4.5, at 14mm, 800 ISO, White Balance set at fluorescent #1.  Slight color correction to remove blue from the mixed daylight coming in a frosted window.

Cons

 

Lens Selection: There is not much yet in the fast prime lens 50mm equivalent. For such a “street-shooter” as the E-330 can be, a selection of fast primes would be good to have. Where are the f1.4 17mm and 25mm primes for available-light that would equate to the 35mm and 50mm arsenals of Leica fame? How about an f1.0 ZuikoLux?

 

Review button (green triangle): In review-your-photos mode, the exposure (shutter speed and f-stop) settings only show on the one screen with the tiny picture and the four color histograms. That's a lot of precious LCD real estate to share with such vital information. Shutter and f-stop settings are very important to see right away with a big view of the photo, especially for a shot that has any problems. You need to see f-stop and exposure on a bigger view of the review photo. For that matter, those settings would be extremely useful if displayed on the instant review screen, which is programmable for however many seconds you want the photo to show right after the shot.

 

Manual focus in Mode B : Magnified focus is a cumbersome task in manual focus mode B with a not very intuitive sequence of buttons. A displayed foot/meter scale would be handy in manual focus, too, to help indicate which way to rack the focus.

 

My Modes: On the C-8080 I've used five of the eight My Modes and really appreciate the ease of selecting these for different situations. The E-330 has only two modes and they are difficult to set and select. Perhaps the SCENE setting on the upper dial could be programmed to handle more and simpler-to-set My Modes.

 

Function button This button must have been where the E-330 firmware programmers stuffed all the functions that they had left over. Trying to set custom white balance is a good example. You have to modify the Function button to do a certain function before you can do that function with the Function button. I'm still not sure how else to use custom White Balance except to program that function into the function button. Maybe it should be called the FunctionFunction button.

 

Delete Button – Often you know a shot went bad as soon as you took it. The delete button should be active during the photo display right after that shot. Instead you have to wait for the photo to write to the card, then go to review mode, then delete it. Especially in RAW mode, that unnecessary sequence can take more than a few of seconds.  Olympus knows how to do this - it's already a useful feature of the C-8080. Also, Delete is an inactive button while in shoot mode. Allow it to be programmed for a shooting function - e.g., go to mirror lockup or change from single to bracketed exposure. These are examples of functions that I would love to have at the press of a button instead of a lengthy menu search.

 

Histogram while shooting : One of the most useful professional functions on the C-8080 was being able to see the histogram while composing a photograph. Proper exposure could be nailed down perfectly before the shot. A histogram before the shot would be a great feature during Live View on the E-330, too.

 

Well, that's some thoughts for now. The week-end holds some promise for some fine photos at an air show. We'll see how the E-330 flies.

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